Scripts and Tidbits

Various scripts and tiny tools or fun animations I created over the years are collected on this page. With a bit of luck they can solve a problem you have, help you write your own script or restore your sense of childlike wonder.

Safari 4 Reload Fix

A way to manipulate Safari 4 that turns the ‘Add Bookmark’ button at the left of the address bar into a ‘Reload’ button. This is a cheap hack to be used at your own risk.

To use it, download the archive for your language, open Safari’s bundle and move the image files in the download to the ‘Resources’ folder. Move the NIB file in the download to the ‘English.lproj’ or ‘German.lproj’ folder and restart Safari. The result isn’t quite as good as the original in Safari 3 because the Reload icon is displayed at all times.

Validate CSS Service

Your CSS should be validated before it is published to ensure you are not to blame when it is not interpreted correctly. The W3C offer a validation service and the script takes the text of SubEthaEdit’s frontmost document and opens the CSS validator for that text.

There is also a version of the script wrapped up as a Service [thanks to the ThisService utility] which adds the ability to run any selected text through the CSS validator to the Services menu. If you want to adapt the script to your favourite text editor, a quick change of its first line should do the trick.

Video Comparator

A Quartz Composition for playing two videos at the same time and seeing their difference.

This can be useful or at least interesting if you want to visualise the difference between two different compression qualities. Export the same video to two files at different settings, drag the resulting files to the Quartz Composer window that opens and rewire the connections that are there [at which stage you’ll realise that you could have just created the Quartz Composition yourself…] The difference between the videos should be displayed then.